


Novendialis

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [78]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Codependency, Death, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, suicidal behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7023892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another world, it is Wanda who dies in Novi Grad and not Pietro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Novendialis

**Author's Note:**

> Those warnings I put in the tags? They are serious. If you will be triggered by any of them it is a-ok for you to sit this fic out.

**i.**   
_ This, _ Pietro thinks, as he runs through the flying, rising wreck of Novi Grad,  _ this is a fight _ . Exhilaration and glee and absolute purpose - he does not want to leave his sister’s side but he will at her order - and it drives him faster and faster through the city they have always called home.

(Home even when rubble crushed the air around them, even when brick dust burned down their throats.)

(It didn’t kill them. It only made them stronger.)

Pietro does not need to dwell, every memory sings up into his mind with each reminder with perfect clarity, perfect understanding as he speeds down the streets of his city, a silver blur behind his every step. The world is slow to him, except when he is running, fighting, the world limned in blue and silver and Wanda’s read, all else greyscale to his anger.

Each burst of Wanda’s scarlet, each silver punch somehow feel like freedom.

_ We will make it right _ , sings between their minds, bonds of blood and choice and binding, blinding trust.

(Pietro feels every bullet hit his sister’s body.)

 

* * *

 

**ii.**   
He hurtles to a halt in the middle of a street, screaming, screaming, mind reaching out and grabbing at every piece of scarlet Wanda has twined into his mind. He can feel her pain, feel her gasping, her hands holding her stomach, her collarbone, the pain of the bullets embedded in her shoulderblade, her hip, her lungs, her  _ heart _ .

_ No _ he is screaming, wordless and worded, voice and mind and emotions all, screaming out,  _ nonononononono NOT MY SISTER, **NO!** _

It is a snarl and a scream and a raging cry as he feels Wanda torn from him completely.

 

* * *

 

**iii.**   
The world is spinning to him, slow and fast and slow and fast, and he can feel his heartbeat (alone alone alone), and hear, down the comms, how the archer has gone to the church. He can remember Wanda’s last image of the city, of the minds gathering more and more to the lifeboats, of the hurtling robots and he finds his anger like icy water rising.  _ Ultron took my sister from me _ .

He is a horse unbridled, no rider to hold his speed to sense. He is faster faster faster and everything is slow slow slow. He remembers this, seeing the world like this, and begging down his bond to Wanda’s mind that she help him slow, help him manage it so he is not racing ahead of her, leaving her behind. She had tamed his speed, helped him balance it, control it, for all the migraines it gave her and now…

He is running, he can feel the wind in his face, he can barely see what is passing him by but Wanda’s scarlet threads in his mind are fading and he is processing more and more and faster and faster and he is free of that, and oh he has failed he has failed but he has one purpose yet left to him.

It is easy to find a drone and a drone and a drone, and running past works them well enough to shatter brittle metal (vibranium? Vibranium meet velocity) and he smiles with vicious pleasure. He is faster and faster and faster and it is hard to parse the voices in his ear, but he hears at least that the archer has taken his sister’s body to the lifeboat and he nods to himself (she will at least be buried).

Then beneath his feet the world is falling.

 

* * *

 

**iv.**   
Pietro  _ laughs _ . He is wild, unbridled, lost to all sense and reason and he cannot make himself care. What reason is there to care? His sister is gone, his city destroyed, his purpose lost… He hurtles through, wild as every wind ever has been, feels things rising around him as he and everything else in the world is falling, and launches himself between building and brick and fallen body.

_ No rest for the wicked _ .

Pietro finds the hurtling body of Ultron’s vibranium body and  _ holds _ .

“ **_You_ ** **_,_** ” he snarls, gripping what there is that remains of Ultron’s body.

There is speed on his side, and force, and all the falling pieces of Novi Grad around them. Ultron’s metal shines, shines in the sun like the silver of his speed, and Pietro snarls.

“ **_You,_ ** ” he manages. “ **_You took my sister from me_ ** .”

Ultron is vibranium but he is fury, fury of ages, of years built and built upon each other. He is the chaos of their nightmares, of Wanda’s anger, of his own ferocity, the warping strength of his speed and Wanda’s scarlet, things which should not be and could warp the world to their whims.

Pietro’s hands punch metal, rip and tear and burrow through the very vibranium of Ultron’s body to tear out his core.

 

* * *

 

**v.**   
He can hear the others down comms still but they do not matter. Ultron’s body is discarded to the rising winds, and Pietro is running still, laps through the city he knows as well as his bones and Wanda’s (Wanda gone, gone, no bones to know any longer). Has it been moments since her death or minutes? Pietro cannot count through warping time, can only count his each and every step, faster and faster, the world a blur even to his eyes. He has no purpose now.

His purpose was protection, his purpose was Wanda, she his pole star, his guiding light. Without her he is a ship without a compass, without a wind, lost out on waves that will buffet him this way and that until he is nothing but a wreck.

Pietro is wild, wild as the winds and waves that will buffet him.

Pietro  _ laughs _ .

 

* * *

 

**v.**   
There is an edge to this third of Novi Grad and Pietro finds it. There is the Helicarrier above and the lifeboats and bots still flying where the others fight. Pietro doesn’t care. The city falls. The world warps.

Pietro’s speed spins still faster without Wanda.

Pietro pitches himself off the edge.

 

* * *

 

**vii.**   
He is falling, falling, and around him there is rubble falling too. He twists in the air, watches, far above, as the city, his city, Wanda’s city, implodes.

_ There will be nothing left _ .

Pietro does not have it in him to care.

Then arms wrap around his body.

 

* * *

 

**viii.**   
He fights and he struggles, but these arms are as strong as the drones and not as brittle. 

“Mr. Maximoff,” says a voice in his ear, polite and precise and without a single note of blame. “You will die if you fall.”

Pietro kicks with all his might. “What do you think I am trying to  _ do?” _

If anything Vision’s arms become more firm. “You have not said goodbye to your sister,” the android says, and Pietro twists and turns and he’s pretty sure he punches Vision in the jaw. 

“How do you think I knew?” he spits. “I was in her mind!” He punches again, and kicks and struggles all he can and he slips for a moment only for Vision to catch him again, strong stable arms and unwavering purpose.  _ “I was in her mind!” _ Pietro screams again and he thinks if he lives much longer he will be sobbing. He has failed, he has failed, failed the purpose he has set himself since he was ten years old, almost half his life ago. “I was in her mind,” he says, and it is barely a whisper.

He is quiet as the android holds him, spent of anger, lacking purpose and unable to die. “Come,” Vision says softly. “Let us get to the Helicarrier.”

 

* * *

 

**ix.**   
There are cells here. Pietro knows they are considering putting him in one. There are people here. Pietro knows many of them, their faces and names and homes and what he stole for them. There is the team here, but without Wanda, Pietro cannot care.

Pietro is empty of everything but loss.

 

* * *

 

**x.**   
The others talk. The others think. Pietro sits, still and silent. He casts his speed away from him lets himself fall stiller and stiller until he is almost as still as Wanda’s body, barely breathing. 

He is nothing now, a failure, a brother without his sister, a twin without his counterpart, a guard without his guide. 

He is lost.

Pietro coils his speed around him and vanishes from the room in a split of silver.

 

* * *

 

**xi.**   
_ Wanda would call this battle-calm _ , Pietro thinks, finding his way down every corridor of the Helicarrier. _ Any other time _ , he thinks,  _ this would be _ .

This isn’t a battle. This isn’t survival, or vengeance, or protection. This is doing as he always has - following where Wanda leads him.

_ Death _ , he thinks, and makes his way outside.

 

* * *

 

**xii.**   
The winds are powerful. The air is thin. The blacktop beneath his feet is solid even though they are thousands upon thousands of feet in the air. 

Pietro sprints to the blurring whirring motors and pitches himself in.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and concrit are very much appreciated.


End file.
